The present invention relates to a pivoting barrier fence. In particular, the present invention relates to a pivoting barrier fence that provides a means to prevent climbing animals, such as cats, from climbing over the fence structure.
Many households have pets. In the United States, two of the most common household pets are dogs and cats. No two pets have the same personalities. Some pets can be trained to live outside and not wanderer away from a home or near a street. Other pets are wanderers and will readily get lost if they are left outside and unrestrained.
Dogs are poor climbers, thus any fence that a dog cannot jump over or dig under is typically sufficient to contain a dog within a confined area. However, cats are natural climbers. They also are very adept at leaping. Thus, in order to confine a cat within a fenced area, either a fence has to be constructed that is abnormally high, or some feature has to be added to the fence that deters a cat from climbing over the fence.
In the prior art, there are different types of fences that contain some feature that is intended to prevent the fence from being climbed. Many fences, especially barbed wire fences, have extra runs of barbed wire at the top of the fence to deter people from climbing the fence. However, very few people want to have barbed-wire fences in their backyards to confine their pets.
Another known fence structure uses angled solid panels attached to the top of a chain link fence. The supports for the fence must be significant to support the weight of the angled panels and the wind loads experience by the angled panels. Furthermore, a lot of material is needed to create the angled solid panels. As such, the entire fence assembly is expensive to manufacture and difficult to install. Additionally, the angled solid panels are disposed at the top of the fence. As a consequence, the entire fence assembly is highly visible and blocks the view of whatever may lie beyond the fence.
It is also known to attach a wire shelf to the back of an existing wooden fence. The wire shelf extends horizontally from the fence and therefore acts as a physical barrier. However, while serving as a physical barrier, the horizontally extending wire shelf itself serves as a climbable structure, thus effectively diminishing its ability to act as a barrier to deter climbing animals.
A need therefore exists in the art for a fencing system that can be used to confine a climbing animal, where the fencing system is low cost, easy to install, and reacts to a climbing animal's attempts at climbing over the fencing structure to further deter climbing of the fence. This need is met by the present invention.